Streams

#2834: Old Folk, New Folks

Listen to some new takes on traditional folk songs for this New Sounds programs. Hear Nico Muhly's work "The Only Tune," from his record "Mothertongue," a collection of works which began as he tried to reconnect with the folk music of my childhood.

Muhly recounts, "I remember my parents singing the ballad of the two sisters - one murdering the other in a river - and I remember a disjuncture between the simple beauty of the song and the intense violence of the words. I still shiver at the memory of the miller fishing the girl's body out with 'his long, long hook,' and the ensuing phrases, in which the girl's corpse is slowly turned into a fiddle, are continuously haunting." Also, more reworkings of old folk songs, including several from The Carter Family, in renditions by Justin Adams, Carla Kihlstedt, Bill Frisell, and Joel Harrison.

PROGRAM # 2834, Music inspired by Folk Songs and The Carter Family (First aired on Monday, 8-18-08)

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